After the overall positive reception of the Mastercard cards issued for the Mexico City subway, the main banks in Mexico are currently developing their own subway debit cards too.

“We're betting to make this technology available for all banking institutions during the second semester of the year, so they can issue payroll cards that can also be used at the Metro [system],” said Guillermo Escobar, Mastercard's vice-president of Market Development for Mexico and Central America.

He confirmed thus far only 500,000 Mastercard-Metro cards have been issued yet these have fallen short of user demand.

However, the challenge is to get clients to use them outside of the Metro system, given that most only use their cards to pay for subway fares.

Smart cards

Escobar added that Mastercard is currently working with the government of a Mexican state in a pilot test to issue smart debit cards for welfare programs.

The goal is for beneficiaries to have their fingerprints scanned by the card itself to identify them as the rightful holders and replacing the so-called “proof of life” welfare programs in Mexico require, “avoiding duplicated lists and improving transparency.”